Vote Republican–Save 10 Percent on All Purchases

Wal-Mart seems to be operating on a new slogan as of late: “Save Money. Live Better. Vote Red.” Using data from CRP, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that the world’s largest retailer has pressured its managers to vote Republican, arguing that Democrats would pass a harmful bill allowing labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret ballot elections. Wal-Mart has claimed that it never tried to sway its employees and pointed to its political action committee–which has split its contributions between the two parties this election cycle–as evidence of its bipartisan nature.

This year the Big Box retailer, which has resisted being unionized, has given more to Democrats than ever before–$565,500, or 43 percent of its total contributions–when including both PAC contributions and individual donations. In the 2006 election cycle, the company’s PAC and employees gave a mere 29 percent to Democrats. Wal-Mart has given as little as 4 percent of its total political contributions to Democrats in the past–a marked difference from the company’s political leanings today. Wal-Mart employees have also given Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama $10,600 so far this cycle, compared to $6,850 to Republican opponent John McCain. Obama backed the labor measure, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, while McCain opposed it.

Except for the Revolving Door section, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License by OpenSecrets.org. To request permission for commercial use, please contact us.